YOUR voice is needed for the ocean! Seismic ships may be in the water blasting marine life by the END of THIS SUMMER. The very next step is OFFSHORE DRILLING.Please take the time to send in your own BLAST on seismic blasting.

Image courtesy of Jon Portman

ONLY DAYS REMAIN TO HELP STOP THE FED GOV FROMHARMING MARINE LIFE IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN!

5 Corporations are seeking permits that would harm hundreds of thousands ofWhales, Dolphins, Turtles, and many more species!

THIS WILL ONLY LEAD TO OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS DRILLING

ØThe National Marine Fisheries Service is reviewing requests from five corporations (hired by oil and gas companies), to harm marine life called “Intentional Harassment Authorizations (IHA’s)” with seismic testing. ØIndustrial ships will conduct seismic testing (aka ocean blasting) using as many as 48 giant airguns per ship and BLAST the ocean every 20-24 seconds with over 250 decibels for weeks on end.ØImpacts from seismic testing can SHOCK, STUN, SCATTER, HARM, AND KILLmarine life. ØThe permits will ALLOW at least 138,000 marine mammals to be harmed, as well as all the other animals in the area.

TAKE ACTION NOW...let your voice be heard! Tell the federal government why seismic blasting must be stopped.

YOU CAN HELP STOP THIS “MAN MADE DISASTER”

Only days remain till the comment period closes July 6, 2017 at midnight.

Seismic Airgun Blasting: What is it and What are the Risks?

The importance of sound in the ocean

Many marine species rely on their ability to produce and interpret sounds in communication and locating prey. Increased human use of the ocean for a variety of industrial, commercial, recreational, research, and military purposes have contributed to rising ambient sound levels. This means that marine life must deal with a cacophony of man-made sounds when trying to communicate with one another - imagine the frustration you feel when shouting to a friend in a crowded room in order to be heard. Sources of human-caused noise in the ocean are many, and include military sonar, vessel traffic, construction activities like pile driving, and seismic airgun blasting.

What is seismic airgun blasting?

Seismic airgun blasting is a practice commonly used by the oil and gas industry to locate potential deposits deep beneath the seafloor; it is also used for research applications to map buried sediments. It involves an array of airguns being towed for up to several miles behind a vessel and blasting extremely loud pulses of compressed air into the water column and deep into the seabed. The reverberations that return to the vessel can then be interpreted to understand what lies beneath the seafloor. In order to obtain a comprehensive "picture," vessels blast seismic airguns every few seconds for days or weeks at a time.

Why should we care?

Seismic airgun blasting creates one of the loudest sounds in the ocean - on the order of 250 decibels. A decibel is a measure of the intensity of a sound, and uses a logarithmic scale (so, a sound that increases by 10 decibels is actually 10 times more intense). To put 250 decibels into context, the threshold at which humans feel pain is 130 decibels; a jet aircraft at takeoff is about 140 decibels! Noise travels faster and farther in seawater than in air - airgun noise has been recorded over 1,800 miles from its origin,1 which is almost double the distance from Cape May to Miami.

Seismic airgun blasting is a big threat to our ocean and the people and marine life that depend on it:

Hearing and sound are integral to the survival of a variety of marine species - over 700 fish species use unique sounds to communicate,2 and many marine mammal species, such as dolphins, use echolocation to navigate and hunt.3

Airgun blasts are damagingly loud, producing sound pressures that are several orders of magnitude louder than the threshold that is hazardous to human hearing.4 Depending on the frequency, intensity, and duration of a sound, temporary or permanent shifts in the hearing ability of treasured marine life, including whales, dolphins, seals, sea turtles, fish, and shellfish, can occur.

Airgun blasts can disrupt or prohibit vital marine animal activities, including communication, migration, mating, feeding, and predator avoidance, and can lead to temporary or even permanent hearing loss.

Seismic activity impacts marine fisheries, which account for over 43,000 jobs5 and $187 million total annual revenue in New Jersey alone,6 as it may result in habitat abandonment, reduced reproductive success, and hearing loss. In fact, commercial catch rates in some areas have been shown to decrease by 40-80% over hundreds of square miles around a single airgun array.7,8

Infographic

Seismic can be a difficult topic to understand. Thanks to a COA volunteer, we have an infographic to give a visual representation of seismic airgun blasting. Click here to view an enlarged version.